A number of privacy groups have spoken out against the adoption of a proposed opt-out plan for behavioral advertising in the US and Europe. The groups are referring to the Advertising Option Icon introduced by the Interactive Advertising Bureau almost one year ago, which purports to make it easy for users to opt out of ad tracking on participating websites with the help of an easily recognizable icon. The system was proposed by the advertising industry as a way to avoid stricter legislation on how they can use information obtained from behavioral tracking, but the privacy groups call it a "flimsy self-regulatory system" that will end up "insufficient and ineffective" at protecting consumer privacy on the Internet

Of course it's flimsy, relying on self-regulation is a quick way to find yourself screwed. Cookies get deleted, advertising companies aren't forced into anything, promising to behave and not doing so won't cause a company much harm, because there are too few and too loophole-filled laws to take them to task. It's a complete sham. The nice thing is, we still have tools like ABP, Ghostery and more. They can't misbehave if they can't reach me.

The "do not track me" option is a joke. About all it will do is get them to use alternate methods of tracking that the laws and browser options don't address. The only way to avoid being tracked is to take control of the identifiable data your system saves and makes available to them. Don't think for one minute that these "do not track" laws or those who wrote them have your interests in mind. They're for the benefit of those who profit from tracking us. As long as I have Proxomitron and a firewall that forces my browser to connect through it, they can have fun trying to get usable data from my system.